Video: Inside ATFP Gala 2013

Photo Gallery: ATFP Gala 2013

Q: What does ATFP advocate Palestinian Americans do?

A: ATFP believes the Palestinian-American community is best served by engaging in American society at every possible level: cultural, political, educational, institutional and simply in terms of day-to-day life, as proud and patriotic Palestinian Americans. One of ATFP's core goals is to help mainstream Palestine, Palestinians and Palestinian Americans in American policy, culture, politics and daily life. We believe that countless Palestinian Americans across the country are doing this, by excelling in their own fields, professions and endeavors, every day. ATFP strongly encourages this, and hopes to be able to provide one platform for honoring and recognizing those achievements and ensuring that our fellow Americans are aware of this under-recognized reality of Palestinian-American achievement.

Palestinian Americans can embrace what the United States offers them. Most importantly this starts with full, unrestricted citizenship, and open access to the political system and all the traditional levers of power and influence, insofar as the community is willing and able to mobilize and deploy them. Citizenship in the only global superpower makes their voices uniquely important, should they choose to employ it in a coordinated, systematic and strategic manner. In their advocacy for Palestine, the Palestinian Americans have another crucial tool: the official commitment of the US government under successive Republican and Democratic administrations to ending the occupation and creating a Palestinian state.

Palestinian Americans are excelling in every field, in every facet of American life, with multiple perspectives and myriad approaches – some of them complementary, others in competition – but all of which reflect a dynamic community empowering itself. ATFP believes in diversity, pluralism, tolerance and dialogue in Palestine, among Palestinian Americans and in the broader American society in which we participate. We welcome different points of view as long as they are expressed with civility and mutual respect.

ATFP is one vehicle through which Palestinians can promote their cause, work together to empower their community, and strengthen their voices. We are proud to accept the support of all those who agree with our mission and model. But we are well aware that there are other options and models that people may wish to pursue and we encourage everyone to advance their agendas as they see fit.

ATFP offers a vision for both Palestine and Palestinian Americans that is a positive one. We are for Palestine. We are categorically against the occupation that began in 1967, but we are not against the State of Israel. The occupation is unjust. Ending it is a vital American national interest and necessary to create a Palestinian state. We are for improving the Palestinian quality of life in all sectors. We are for bringing Palestinians and Americans closer together at every level. We are for Palestinian and Arab Americans achieving as much as they can in our own society, in every discipline and career path, as possible. Ours is a vision of hope. It is a vision of success. It is a vision of liberation, of realization of dreams, of independence, and of the empowerment for Palestinians and Arab Americans both in the Middle East, and here, at home, in the United States.